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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27926707">Panem Hunger Center</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Norberts_Mom/pseuds/Norberts_Mom'>Norberts_Mom</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Greasy Sae's POV, Modern AU, Thanksgiving, everlark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 20:54:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,466</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27926707</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Norberts_Mom/pseuds/Norberts_Mom</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark meet while volunteering at the Panem Hunger Center. Told from Greasy Sae's POV.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Katniss Everdeen &amp; Peeta Mellark, Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Seasons of Everlark— Fall 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Panem Hunger Center</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for Seasons of Everlark, Autumn 2020. Thanks to endlessnightlock for the prompt and to my beta, mega-aulover.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I’m getting too old for this stuff, but here goes nothin’. The room is full of laughter as I make my way up to the podium to begin my speech. The room quiets as I take the microphone.</p><p>Some of you might not know me, but my name is Sae. Most folks around here call me Greasy Sae, and I’ve been working at the Panem Hunger Center since we started it up back in the day. I’d like to tell you a little something about our wonderful Katniss.</p><p>All eyes in the crowd turn to Katniss and I can see the blush on her face.</p><p>Katniss came to the Panem Hunger Center as a client when she was just a young girl, only 11 years old. Scrawny thing, she was too. Dripping wet from the cold and rainy night that would chill most folks to the bone, but our dear Katniss was determined to find a way to feed her family that late April night.</p><p>You see, her father had passed away 3 months prior and her mother was doing poorly. Katniss took it upon herself to take care of not only herself and her distraught mother, but her younger sister too. Katniss traded and sold off what little belonging she could, but once the cupboards were bare, she headed out to trade what had to be the last of her worldly possessions, some old baby clothes her sister had grown out of. Unfortunately, no one was buying.</p><p>Somehow, Katniss managed to stumble into our doors. I like to think it was the smell of my soup cooking that brought her in. She was so small, shivering and wet, but fierce just the same. Katniss wandered over to the serving table, but was reluctant at first to take anything for free. I took the baby clothes as a trade, but she didn’t think it was enough. She was adamant that she had to pay her way, so I gave her a promise that she could earn her food by coming to work for the center when she wasn’t at school. We packed up 3 meals and Katniss was on her way.</p><p>I tell ya, I wasn’t really expecting to see her again, but bright and early that next morning, there was Katniss waiting on the stoop ready to work off her supposed debt. But at the end of the day, I’d send her home with more food and she’d be back again the next weekend.</p><p>Eventually, Katniss brought her mother and baby sister with her. I praised the Lord that day, because to me that proved that Katniss really trusted us. She knew we wouldn’t try to separate them. We got her mama some help and eventually the whole family was on the mend.</p><p>Katniss kept coming back, though. She really came alive when she worked here. Katniss was always the first to step up, whether it was helping serve folks in the dining room, washing dishes in the back, organizing stocks, or planning to go out fundraising door to door. Katniss was all in. I think she really found her calling, her purpose in life when she walked through our doors.</p><p>Katniss would bring in her friends every now and then to help out. She’d bring in that tall fella she hung around with, but she didn’t seem to see him as anything more than a friend. Even our old director’s grandson, Finnick Odair didn’t turn our girl’s head. And all the girls liked him. Katniss paid him no mind. I thought maybe she was into girls, or wasn’t into anyone, but one day, I found out different.</p><p>One day about a week before Thanksgiving our dear Katniss was on break from college, working the phones to drum up help from around town. She had been calling up restaurants, coffee shops and bakeries to get them to lend a hand for the holiday. Sure, folk are hungry all year ‘round, but we get an influx of clients on Thanksgiving. A potential new bread supplier walked in the door that day, and she hasn’t been the same ever since.</p><p>This fella, Peeta Mellark, from Mellark’s Bakery walked in with broad shoulders and blond hair and Katniss stopped dead in her tracks. Katniss was stumbling all over herself trying to talk to him. I’d never seen the girl flustered before. She had no trouble talking to the likes of Plutarch Heavensbee, the chairman of the board of Panem’s television networks, but in walks this humble baker and Katniss turns to jelly. When I asked her about it later, she’d told me she hadn’t eaten yet and it was the smell of the food he brought in that made her stomach rumble. </p><p>She eventually pulled herself together and gave him the tour and took him to her office to make the partnership official. We could hear laughter coming down the hall. Katniss is usually all business. Deep down, she’s a sweet passionate person who dedicates her life to make sure everyone is taken care of, but the girl hardly ever laughs. </p><p>That laughter was music to my ears. Day after day, a smile would brighten Katniss’ face whenever Peeta walked in the door. Every day he brought her something new, samples of the recipes he was trying out, he said, but her favorite was always the cheese buns. She said that his cheese buns were to die for.</p><p>Peeta even came in and helped serve clients on Thanksgiving. Most of our suppliers are satisfied that they did their part by providing food, but he was here handing out plates of turkey and dressing, clearing off tables, and bumping elbows and sharing smiles with Katniss while doing the dishes at the end of the night. </p><p>I really loved seeing Katniss so happy, but that son of a gun Finnick Odair had to go and tease her about it. The next day, Peeta brought Katniss a bouquet of yellow flowers, but Katniss said she couldn’t accept them for herself. She thanked him and put them on a table in the dining room and walked back to her office. After that, he unloaded his delivery and set the bag with her two cheese buns on her desk and walked out. I’d never seen a sadder man than him that day. How Katniss could resist those big sad puppy dog eyes, I’ll never know. To tell the truth, I didn’t think he’d come back after that, but the man lived up to his commitment to serve the community. </p><p>It went on like that for a while, both of them being professional and distant, staring at each other when the other wasn’t looking.  And being down right stupid. I could see the girl was miserable too. I caught her more than once glancing at those flowers longingly. I just couldn’t take it anymore. So I sat her down and we had a chat. Somehow she got it in her head that to be taken seriously she couldn’t let her guard down. This place came before everything except her sister and her mother. But what kind of life is that? She worked so hard when she was just a girl to keep her family afloat, only to give up on a possible future now? Balderdash!</p><p>I told her she was torturing herself, denying herself the thing that she wanted most. I told her to go for it. So the next time Mr. Mellark came in to drop off bread for the center, Katniss quietly asked him back to her office once again. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it was very quiet. I snuck down the hall to see what was going on only to find Peeta, with his back pressed against the door, engaged in a passionate kiss with our very own Katniss. </p><p>I hated to do it, but got their attention, by knocking on the window to Katniss’ office. They jumped apart like the other was on fire. Both glassy eyed with red lips and pink cheeks. Oh to be young again. Anyway, I told them to get out of there. I’d take care of things for the day. Take some time to get to know each other. </p><p>That was two years ago. Katniss has since graduated from her program at Panem University, and now that Mags has retired, I’m proud to raise a toast to our newest director of the Panem Hunger Center, Mrs. Katniss Everdeen-Mellark. </p><p>I raise my glass and look over to Katniss who mouths “Thank you,” through her teary smile. Peeta is seated next to her, grinning with his arm wrapped around her.</p><p>After a sip of champagne and cheers all around I finish with my speech. Remember folks, indifference breeds indifference, but kindness breeds love.</p>
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